Saturday, February 16, 2013

A Good Day To Die Hard-review

As the fifth of the Die
Hard series you sort of have to take each film with a certain grain of
salt. The character of John McClane has changed
from reluctant hero to a super cop that is nearly indestructible. This movie was a lot better than the previous
one which seemed to dumb down the series a great deal. As long as you aren’t looking at it with a
nitpicker’s eye, it’s a pretty fun movie.

John McClane, played by Bruce Willis, hears that his son
Jack, played by Jai Courtney, is being tried for murder in Russia. He goes to Russia and catches Jack as he is
in the middle of a daring escape from prison with another prisoner. It turns out Jack is in the CIA and is
working to keep this criminal alive in order to get a secret file he has on the
Chernobyl disaster.

Bruce Willis and Jai Courtney have a fun chemistry. Their chemistry works well for this action
movie. The villains are over the top
and pretty memorable. There are a lot of
unbelievable scenarios that really are sometimes fairly implausible. Still, it delivers exactly what you would
expect from a movie of this namesake.

If I had to nitpick I would say that where the movie tends
to lose me is their choice to hold the final scenes in Chernobyl. For one thing, the heroes run around with no
radiation suits when the villains do.
They also fall into pool water with open wounds. That water must still
be irradiated. Even today people can’t handle Marie Curie’s notebook without
protective clothing, what makes them think a person could waltz into a place
that suffered a meltdown in a simple t-shirt and suffer no consequences.

The nitpicking for a Die
Hard movie can only be taken as serious as the movie itself. I know I can’t
expect realism is these movies. These are
the sorts of movies where you check your brain at the door and enjoy the
ride. If you like wild action then it is
certainly going to be a fun movie and worth watching as a matinee. Otherwise, give it a watch when it comes out
on DVD as it makes an addition to the franchise.

1 comment:

There is usually at least one film released each month that falls into the swampy levels that this film descends into, but this is a major Hollywood release, how did Bruce Willis sign on to this script? Good review.